Diamond 14D 14-Inch Hoof Nipper with Plastic Grips

Hoof nipper
I like this product and was glad to get this nipper. We ordered a sharpener because product needed sharpening to cut through hard hooves. All in all a great product.

Sturdy but small clipping area
I bought this hoof nipper because of its decent price and strong look. I recieved it promptly in the mail and it came in nice packaging. It was very sturdy, clean, and sharp but it was hard to open and close (a little use should fix that) and the actual area of the spread open clipper head doesnt seem very big at all, and I am doubting that it would actualy fit a decent amount of hoof it in to be clipped. Once open, the joint area sticks out and actually prevents you from grabbing more than 1/4 to 1/2 inch deep of hoof, so if your horse has a thick hoof wall or a lot to trim off, you will probably have to knaw it off in sections. Other than that, a high quality product.

This will get the job done
I needed nippers to trim hooves and save some money since the cost of caring for a horse is raising in this poor economy. I studied the natural hoof care by reading up on Jaime Jackson and Pete Ramey’s techniques and traded in my old tools for some fresh ones. Finally I can really get the job done, quicker, easier and with beautiful results. What was I waiting for?! These nippers are sharp, strong and irreplaceable.

These are NOT proper hoof nippers. FAR from it.
Yeah…these aren’t proper hoof nippers. PERIOD. They’re just end cut pliers. Like something you’d find in a hardware store. The blades are WAY too thick to cut through anything but the softest hoof walls, and they’ll still make the job much harder than it needs to be. I’m a pretty strong guy and even thought these have long, 14″ handles and therefore a lot of leverage, it still took a considerable amount force to cut through my draft’s hoof wall. Yes, he has larger/thicker/tougher than average hooves, but do yourself one favor and make ONE cut using a pair of proper nippers and everything will become crystal clear. These belong in your garage tool box, and NOT your tack/farrier box. Also, the throat clearance is VERY shallow. Forget taking big bites if necessary. They are also very sticky when opened fully, which isn’t really a huge deal as you won’t have them in that position when using them. But the stickiness shouldn’t be there.The most ridiculous thing about these hoof nippers is the fact they are SELF DULLING. See the little nubs on the handle side opposite the blades? Those should make contact JUST before the blades touch. They should require SLIGHT filing every time the jaws are sharpened to maintain that slight clearance. There’s such a huge factory gap, the “nippers” would be worn out and useless by the time they started touching. They don’t even come remotely close to hitting, so the sharp jaw edges just slam into each other over and over and that is COMPLETELY unacceptable for a nipper. Use a pair of $100 nippers, nevermind a professional grade $200+ set. In fact, in my experience, the $100 nippers are 95% of the $200+ set. Again, ONE cut and it’ll become IMMEDIATELY obvious to you that these aren’t proper farrier nippers. There’s a huuuuuuge difference in SO many ways. “Buy once, cry once” is a silly little saying that is SO applicable to these things, AND MOST FARRIER TOOLS AND TACK….and most tools in general, and here’s a prime example.On the positive side for these nippers, the edges seem to have been hardened nicely. I use them exclusively for clinch cutting. Since I’m shoeing a draft, my farrier doesn’t undercut, hammer down and file smooth the clinches as it compromises the integrity of the nail by thinning it out too much, so the clinches are left “on the surface”. This allows me to re-clinch them between shoeings and also allows me to cut the clinches off with the nippers, rather than using a clinch cutter and a hammer, which is WAY more difficult to use when the nail shanks are left the full thickness, rather than filed paper thin on a standard sized horse. These nippers cut right through the thicker shank draft nails EASILY, and haven’t chipped yet. I’d put them up against any nail or piece of wire/cable. They’ve gotten slightly duller, but no structural failure of the edge of any type has occurred. And in my opinion it’s NOT the relatively soft nails that are dulling them. They’re dulling themselves with the edge interference previously mentioned. The edges SHOULD NOT TOUCH. NONE of the higher end brand’s edges touch. NONE of them.I’m being generous giving these one star, sorry Diamond. On the plus side (and I may have my facts backward here) Diamond brand is owned by Anvil, or vice versa. That means one one of them owns Nordic Forge as well as Viking, among other SEVERAL other well known, respected brands. I HIGHLY recommend Nordic VIKING brand nippers. Remember, VIKING. They are a “real deal” set of nippers, and will set you back another $40 or so. They are in the same league as Mustad and Edge, also both VERY nice, REAL nippers for an affordable price.Maybe for piggies, goats, etc, these things are adequate, but for something as big as a horse hoof, trust me, you’re doing it the hard way. I likely bought them for the same reason you did. For cracked hoof wall relief, chips, emergency trims, etc. My justification was “they’ll be good enough for what I’ll need them for”. No. Straight up NO.Sorry for such a long winded review. Maybe reviewers giving them a higher rating aren’t using them on horses, and I don’t mean to come off as arrogant, nor disrespectful to their opinions, buy my guess is they’ve never used a proper set of nippers. No disrespect to Diamond, but these literally belong in a tool box, NOT a tack box. They are simply large, end cutting nippers/pliers, AND THAT’S IT. This is a CRUDE tool compared to proper nippers. If I were Diamond, Anvil or whoever the parent company is, I’d drop this product in a second.Look at these or ANY end cutting pliers. Compare them to proper hoof nippers. Now make 2 piles. Which pile would you put these Diamond nippers in?